Kneeling Down to Look into a Culvert

I kneel down to peer into a culvert.
The other end seems far away.
One cone of light floats in the shadowed water.
This is how our children will look when we are dead.

I kneel near floating shadowy water,
watching water flowing in a tunnel—
blue sky widens the other end—
darkened by the shadowy insides of the steel.

Are they all born? I walk on farther;
out in the plowing I see a lake newly made.
I have seen it before . . . it is a lake
I return to when all my family, grown, are gone.

I have fathered so many children and returned
to that lake—grayish flat slate banks,
low arctic bushes. I am a lake-serpent, throwing water drops
off my head. Behind me my arching body follows.

How long I stay there alone! For a thousand years
I am alone, with no duties, living as I live.
Then one morning a feathery head pokes from the water.
I fight—it’s time—it’s right—and am torn to pieces fighting.